Things I do when I’m not Birding

The lack of birding opportunities around here has reached epic and troubling proportions. Two days into the year I have 20 species. That’s all. The extensive time spent at home with “family” has rolled into time working the first week of the year, which included the very first day. This significantly reduces the number of things to write about. Do *you* want to hear how I finally picked up a Hermit Thrush today? I didn’t think so. So I am forced home to think about birding rather than to actually do it.

Fortunately, this means projects. So in lieu of actually birding I’ve been forced to think of ways to better visually represent the birding that I’m not doing. And so, the county list heat map was born. The table associated with it is fairly well explanatory.

As you can see, I’ve actually birded a surprisingly high percentage of the state, just under 75%. Sadly, many of these are counties in which I’ve only driven through or that I’ve birded but have long since lost the records outside of the few notable birds I mentioned and was able to recreate checklists for from my blog posts while I was tackling the World’s Worst Big Year in 2008. That’s a warning for you kids out there, keep track of ALL your lists.

You can clearly see the counties where I live and bird regularly, as well as the extremely productive coastal counties where even a couple visits can net you loads of birds. Those dark blues are mostly counties where I’ve visited at least a couple times while I’ve been eBirding. White are counties I haven’t visited yet, mostly at the extremes of the state.